Tuesday, June 12, 2012

... since our trip to The Hamptons and now New York City kept me tied up much more than I expected.

Until I can find some time to do something substantial, I recommend an excellent and thoroughly provocative essay by Victor Davis Hanson, "The Liberal Super Nova." Liberals likely will be offended, but at the very least I would argue that he has shed light on a very important shift in the political winds in this country.

From Greece to Italy to California to Wisconsin to Obama’s Washington, the verdict is in: the democratic statist model of trying to provide cradle-to-grave benefits, administered by an elite technocratic class, using demonization to bully the opposition and redistribute income, not only does not work, but cannot ever work.

President Bill Clinton had two consecutive years with balanced budgets as they are officially calculated and submitted a balanced budget for 2000 which George Bush II inherited. But Republicans including Ayn Rand idolizing Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve began to postulate that there could be - get this - an upcoming shortage of Treasury Securities, etc. and other non-sense to justify abandoning the hard fought Republican and Democratic compromises which resulted in the balance.

William, the Camelot II economy of Clinton was a false economy and he signed the repeal of Glass Steagal as his last act of... setting up the next false economy.

Clinton’s false economy went bust. Bush was hounded because it was a jobless recovery. Bush’s false economy went bust. Obama is hounded because it is a jobless recovery.

While I consider many acts by Clinton to be criminal as well as some by Bush, they were both operating under the belief in a savior government. Central planning never worked, isn’t working now, and will never work. Obama is evangelist for central control.

The more benefits including corporate, the government hands out is a sign of more corruption. The blue model (Walter Russell Mead) is dying right in front of our eyes. Why does big government hurt the economy? Because it reduces economic diversity. We are in favor of diversity, right? Innovation and productivity gets reduced at the hands of bureaucrats trying to keep the status quo for its patrons (especially the education cartel, SEIU, the medical care cartel, GE and other corps., greenies, Wall St., etc.).

How can he lump Ireland - the lowest tax rate, free-enterprising country in Europe together with corrupt, lying Greece?

What I see as the common denominator to the entire financial crisis since its inception in 2008 is the utter greed and stupidity of bankers and all the corporate blood suckers who are close to them: bond rating agencies for example. Others might be mortgage brokers, hedge funds, real estate appraisal companies, etc.

Those corporate entities imploded and the governments - US, Ireland and Spain - needed to rescue them adding Trillions of debt to those nations. Simultaneously the fall in real estate values and their slowing economies resulted in higher unemployment, more defaults etc.

What were manageable debt levels for the US, Ireland and Spain have become unmanageable.